“The women in my family are storytellers. They understand the importance of storytelling in intimacy and building connection. They know how to draw out stories. They know how to remember well.  If I mirror any part of them today,  it would be that.”

In this episode I am in the garden with Cole Arthur Riley. Cole shares how she has learned storytelling from the women in her family, how being conscious of her own story affects the way she shows up in the world, and how understanding the stories of the mothers in her life impacts her relationship with them.

Cole Arthur Riley is the spiritual teacher in residence with Cornell’s Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making. She is the creator of Black Liturgies, a space for Black spiritual words of liberation, lament, rage, and rest; and a project of The Center for Dignity and Contemplation.

Born and for the most part raised in Pittsburgh, Cole studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Her debut book, This Here Flesh, will be published by Penguin Random House in February of 2022.